AuthorTopic: new with questions (Read 3727 times)

Hi everyone, I am new, glad I found this forum, seem like a great place for answers that I have.

I would like to know if it would be easy finding part time law related work while in law school full time. I know and read that there are summer jobs but it would seem like 1L would be the toughest on the wallet.

a little about memale32soon to be married and 2 childrenin undergrad (took 10+ years off to work)

I first started to want to get in to law working with the FBI to prosecute someone who hacked my servers. seem like the world need more IP laws and people who understand the new technologies and able to apply the IP laws. I am accomplished in my field, but I finally just decided to go back to school to finish the ug degree so I can get into law school. I took a few prep tests for LSAT and find myself enjoying the tests very much and upon further reading I found out I would suit the field of law pretty well.

But it is going to be tough figuring out what to do to keep my family living well while attending school full time. I don't want to do PT programs because I already missed so much time with school. I also have kids, a mortgage and other things to pay for.

I looked on LSN and thing I can probably qualify for some scholarships at the middle level schools, but I would still need a decent amount to upkeep the home. My soon to be wife would stay home, take care of the kids and work part-time.

My question would be

Would 1L be able to find part time work in law related field? I would have to quit what I am doing now, and the part-time jobs I can get do not pay very well.

What are the chances of getting top schools with my situation? My current GPA is about 3.7, I plan to get it to 3.8 by graduation (most classes I am taking I should be qualified to teach, thats 1 good thing about working in the industry so long ). I hope to get 170 on LSAT, I am getting 165 or so with the prep tests but I have not done a prep course yet (took the tests cold).

I live in Philadelphia, and have some credentials with some good organizations in the area, and I want to get into Penn. I will apply to Penn and Temple, from LSN maybe I can get money from Temple if I get to my grade/LSAT target, but really want to get into Penn... If I can get in and afford it!

Would 1L be able to find part time work in law related field? I would have to quit what I am doing now, and the part-time jobs I can get do not pay very well.

It would unlikely to get a 1L part-time legal job that pays well. Your best bet would be to do paralegal / legal assistant type work through a temp agency. But, you're probably overqualified. Best of luck with the LSAT and your applications!

thanks! What about the summer after 1L and after? My best bet as I thought would be try to qualify for money at schools then take out loans to keep everything paid. but if there are good work prospect after 1L it would obviously be that much better. Boy if I had knew i was going to law school I wouldn't have gotten into this mortgage and its a horrible time to sell too.

how do most non-traditional keep the bills paid? working spouse? then you would need childcare too.

The ABA has a limit on the number of hours a fulltime 1L can work, I think its 20 a week, some schools enforce this, I have heard others donít. In your situation I would highly recommend going PT. Iím part-time and I have classmates who worked fulltime jobs and had kids (one a single mother of three) who did it in 3 years just like FT, others 3.5 years, and others like me take the full four years. Going PT means after 1L you can likely land a PT or FT clerking job to get both income and legal experience. Just something to consider.

All of this is going to come down to your LSAT score, so if you can afford to take a class and spend the time necessary to prep until youíre ready. As you will see on this board most people score lower than they prep test, so consider that in your planning and only take the exam when youíre really ready. Good luck.

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*In clinical studies, Matthies was well tolerated, but women who are pregnant, nursing or might become pregnant should not take or handle Matthies due to a rare, but serious side effect called him having to make child support payments.

thanks! What about the summer after 1L and after? My best bet as I thought would be try to qualify for money at schools then take out loans to keep everything paid. but if there are good work prospect after 1L it would obviously be that much better. Boy if I had knew i was going to law school I wouldn't have gotten into this mortgage and its a horrible time to sell too.

how do most non-traditional keep the bills paid? working spouse? then you would need childcare too.

Iím not sure how this works with scholarships but each school has a ďcost of attendanceĒ which is the maximum you can borrow per year (I think they deduct from that any scholly you get). Do a search on the law schools website to find out how much that is at each school. This includes everything from tuition to what they will allow you for room and board, which is most of the time really low. It certainly will not cover a mortgage unless you live in a very inexpensive place and donít need food or utilities to survive. Most 1Ls donít get paying jobs the first summer, of course this depends on what school you go to, but its relatively rare outside the top schools. Most volunteer or RA the first summer to get some experience.

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*In clinical studies, Matthies was well tolerated, but women who are pregnant, nursing or might become pregnant should not take or handle Matthies due to a rare, but serious side effect called him having to make child support payments.

I am going to try very hard to keep my current job so I can go to a full time program while still keeping my regular income, or maybe a large portion of it. I telecommute now, but I dont know if I can commit to the same amount of work hours in 1L even if it is from home after school. I would much rather concentrate on law school.

But I guess if I Can't make the money situation work I would have to consider the PT programs. Temple would be my only option then. I am still hoping if I can get a full ride then I can max out fed loans and work part-time.

thanks for the advice. I never considered PT before. maybe I will apply to FT and PT programs and see how it all work out. IT would be nice to keep my current job.

I have classmates who worked fulltime jobs and had kids (one a single mother of three) who did it in 3 years just like FT,

How in the heck did she pull it off in 3 years going Part-time??? Most part-time programs I've looked at said 5 years! Wow my hat goes off to this women, and I'd love to get some pointers, tips, or advice on how she did it!

To the OP. Here is my plan to live a comfortable lifestyle while not working and attending LS full-time:I recently completed 8 weeks of trainging to become a Professional Foster Parent. Of course it's not for everyone but the state of AZ reimburses 100 per day per child. Now of course i'm not doing it just for the money to attend law school, I really do want to help teenage foster children, but 3 grand a month per child will help as well!

I have classmates who worked fulltime jobs and had kids (one a single mother of three) who did it in 3 years just like FT,

How in the heck did she pull it off in 3 years going Part-time??? Most part-time programs I've looked at said 5 years! Wow my hat goes off to this women, and I'd love to get some pointers, tips, or advice on how she did it!

I on;ly really looked at PT programs and all of them where 4 years or less. I have several classmates who did it in 3 or 3.5, in fact about half of my class has already graduated, in May when I'm done it will be four years. The people who can do it faster (including number 1 and 3 in our class) are just great time managers.

Logged

*In clinical studies, Matthies was well tolerated, but women who are pregnant, nursing or might become pregnant should not take or handle Matthies due to a rare, but serious side effect called him having to make child support payments.

I don't recommend viewing foster children as the key to paying for it. What you'll need to do is: 1) pay off all of your debts that you can before law school 2) You will likely need to take out the maximum amount of loans to pay for school. Even if you get scholarships, there is a ceiling to what you can take out, so 3) treat your living expenses for your student loans as your salary. That's what you get -- learn to live on it. Cut cable, trips, eating out, and $1000 per child Christmases. Different schools give you slightly different figures. I was around $1400/month at some schools and closer to $1700/month at others. 4) Spread that number over 12 months, instead of 10. You will need to be able to work unpaid summer jobs if that's what it comes down to, to help this be a worthwhile investment. 5) You are not allowed, at most schools, to work more than X hours per week as a 1L law student. 6) Bust ass to be able to get the paid gigs over the summer. I earn between $30k and $40k a summer for 12-14 weeks of work. 7) Consider selling the house. It would give you better mobility for taking the best deal to come up, and you could have more control over whether your monthly expenses are affordable. There are plenty of financial scenarios where this would be a bad move, but you should at least look into the option.

5) You are not allowed, at most schools, to work more than X hours per week as a 1L law student.

I agree with everything SYN said, but I think number five needs an * for people who are compleatly new to law school game, in that the ABA limit on working applies only to full-time programs, there are no school or ABA limits on hours worked for part-time (day or evening) programs.

Logged

*In clinical studies, Matthies was well tolerated, but women who are pregnant, nursing or might become pregnant should not take or handle Matthies due to a rare, but serious side effect called him having to make child support payments.